‘Mad scientist’ visualizes Atari 2600 fetching data from ROM for mesmerizing light show — signal propagation through the 8-bit circuits animated
Source: Tom’s Hardware
Visualization of Atari 2600 ROM Data
Self‑organizing systems researcher and self‑confessed mad scientist Alex Mordvintsev has shared a spectacular new CMOS FET‑level visualization. In the video below, you can see the Floppy Rescue homebrew ROM running on a FOSS silicon clone of an Atari 2600. The data being fetched from ROM is visualized using multicolour light traces, creating a mesmerizing effect.
The simulation tool is still in development and not yet distributed, as Mordvintsev notes in a tweet that they are “working on it.” The embedded video begins with a full‑screen overview of the Tiny Atari 2600, a clone of the classic VCS console’s SoC that forms part of Tiny Tapeout 9. The camera then zooms across the chip, showing pulsing light travelling through the circuit’s gates and wires.
The signal propagation, as data is loaded from ROM, appears as a colourful, evolving pattern. On the VGA monitor panel to the right, you can see that the whole 32‑second video displays only half of the Floppy Rescue title screen. On a real Atari 2600 this would load instantly, so the visualization is deliberately slowed down to make the data flow visible.
By today’s semiconductor standards the Atari 2600 is “neolithic,” but in this animated video the Tiny Atari 2600 looks futuristic thanks to the visualization style. The original 2600 was built around three core chips:
- MOS 6507 CPU – a cut‑down version of the MOS 6502
- TIA – handling video, audio, input, and collision detection
- RIOT – providing RAM, I/O, and a timer
These have been folded into a single SoC for the Tiny Tapeout project, which is what you see in action in the video.
Atari hits and misses
We’ve written about the 1977 vintage Atari 2600 (also called the Atari VCS) several times before. In November, the Atari 2600+ Pac‑Man Edition was released as a nostalgic cash‑grab. More ambitiously, in 2021 Atari launched a “modern” VCS based on a Ryzen APU, but it turned out to be a $399 clunky flop.